Every year since 2012 fall protection violations have earned the top spot on OSHA’s Top 10 list of most cited violations. Inadequate fall protection can put your business at a higher risk for employee injury and death. Courtesy of Gorbel’s Fall Arrest E-Book, here are seven ways your company can make fall protection a top priority.
- Enhance your safety training. The path to effective fall protection begins with a top-notch safety training program. When properly organized, safety training will effectively engage employees and prime them for safe and productive employment.
- Establish a culture of safety. Establishing a culture of safety starts with the active participation of senior management and stakeholders. Senior managers must then secure the buy-in of supervisors, who must secure a commitment to safety from front-line employees.
- Identify your hot spots for falls. Once you and your employees are fully committed to optimizing safety, the next step in the fall protection process is to identify the areas in your warehouse where falls are most likely to occur.
- Upgrade your fall protection equipment. Once you have established a culture of safety and identified the high-risk areas in your facility, it is time to focus on your fall protection equipment. By investing in robust, dependable fall protection systems, you can reduce the risk of injury in facilities with mezzanines and other elevated work platforms.
- Safeguard your loading dock. One of the best ways to prevent falls in your loading dock area is to install safety gates. Safety gates are easy to install and provide a host of safety benefits to warehouse employees. First, they provide a visual barrier that alerts drivers and employees to proceed with caution. Second, they can be used alongside a guardrail system to help protect all sides of your loading dock area. And third, they provide an extra element of protection from falls.
- Cover floor openings and skylights with screens. Covering floor openings and skylights with screens or railings helps facilities comply with OSHA regulations that require “every skylight floor opening and hole” to be guarded by a skylight screen or railing.
- Schedule internal safety inspections. An internal safety inspection accomplishes a host of goals. First, safety inspections remind employees how important it is to have fall protection measures in place. Second, safety inspections alert management to new safety challenges that may have arisen. And third, internal inspections can help prepare facilities for formal audits and inspections by OSHA and other regulatory agencies.
For more insights and information, download the Fall Arrest: Insights and Ideas for Workplace Compliance from Gorbel.
Located in West Hartford, Connecticut, Material Handing Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of overhead cranes, hoists, lift tables, vertical lifts, conveyors, storage racks, dock equipment, material handling equipment, and guarding/fall protection systems. We have partnered with many of the top manufacturers of these products and can offer competitive pricing, innovative solutions, and our standard reliable service. If you have equipment or materials that you want to move carefully, please contact our offices at 860-523-4205 or fill out the contact form to discuss how it can be used in your business.